


Wherever You Are Is My Home

by ninathena



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Doctor Clarke, F/M, Hurt Bellamy, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 21:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10049438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninathena/pseuds/ninathena
Summary: Clarke does a quick examination on Bellamy's damaged throat after the ALIE!Kane incident, but of course feelings come up because this is Bellamy and Clarke and they have a lot of feelings... about each other.AN: I wrote this before season 4 but it's still pretty canon compliant.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this forever ago for the kink meme. So it was supposed to be short and smutty but I failed on both counts. But here's a nice, little, emotionally charged Bellarke moment for ya.

It’d taken forever getting everyone down the tower and through the long trip out of Polis, but they were finally back at Arkadia. All their people safe and sound - physically anyway. Mentally… everyone would be dealing with the repercussions of ALIE for a long time to come.

If they survived this coming apocalypse, that is.

When Clarke had told Bellamy of what was coming - of how much time they had – he’d been speechless. The ground, it seemed, was only one horror after another. And there are some times - late at night, when he’s drunk too much or just in a gloomy, contemplative mood - when he wonders if it was worth it. Was leaving the Ark worth all this pain? All this suffering? There’s been so much death and destruction in the six months they’ve been here.

But then he remembers Octavia’s smile as her feet touched the ground for the first time, riding Helios and slowly coming into her own. She’d come so far from the little girl he hid beneath the floor.

He still feels the sting of healing cuts on his face - tight and itchy. They’ll heal and they’ll fade, but his guilt, his remorse, the memory of the look on his sister’s face as she became a wild and vengeful thing taking out her grief on him, would always stay with him. Would always haunt him.

And he’d like to say that was the only horror he’d remember when it came to the people he cared for most, but the ground is never that kind. Memories of Kane’s face, cold and determined as he choked the life out of him crop up in his mind’s eye, making every breath he takes burn just a little bit more. The man had been under ALIE’s control, Bellamy knows that, but that face – that expression. It was almost as painful as the dismissive, disappointed one he’d held for Bellamy after everything that’d gone down with Pike.

With a low groan of the door Bellamy’s head snaps to the right. Jackson had promised to return shortly to begin Bellamy’s examination. Abby’s young protégé informing Bellamy that everyone was to be checked out - even grumpy guardsmen who insisted they were fine. Bellamy had eyed him as the man skittishly reviewed Bellamy’s file, reading down the list of his medical history. His hands shook, and his eyes never met Bellamy’s, shifting everywhere but.

He was obviously still reeling from being under ALIE’s control, and for a long moment Bellamy wondered how wise a decision it was to allow this man to treat others while still so broken himself. But the awful truth was, there was no one on this Earth who wasn’t broken in some way. And sadly, there were only a handful of medically trained professionals.

But when the heavy door slides open it’s not a head of short brown hair that sneaks in, but short blonde hair, newly shorn just above slender shoulders.

“Clarke.” It comes out hoarse and broken, and he can feel himself blush.

She closes the door with a clang before striding confidently to the small table that sits against the wall, footfalls echoing in the tiny room.

He tries clearing his throat, but damn that just hurts like a motherfucker, sharp and raw, and he actually has to take a moment to hold back the tears that spring up at the sudden pain.

“What are you doing here?” he croaks, trying again. It isn’t any better, but he’s determined to ignore it as best he can.

His eyes fix on the short hair as she studies his medial chart. It’s mesmerizing to see it that way - her hair. All the time he’s ever known her it was always so long. Longer even when he found her tide to a post underground. He remembers the feel of it, the stiff strands dirty against his calloused fingers as he pushed it from her face with such affection.

The word makes his stomach roll and his heart stutter. He hadn’t known then - he’d felt it, felt his heart soar and nearly burst with… something - but he hadn’t known what it was, hadn’t allowed himself to admit it.

He loved her. He loves her.

When she turns to look at him he can only blink, inhaling deeply and wincing. “You cut your hair.” It’s obviously said as a statement and he suddenly feels like the biggest idiot. Of course she’s aware of the fact that she cut her own damn hair.

“Yeah,” she says tentatively. “I uh…” She presses her lips together. “I just needed a change.”

Her eyes are sad - a deep shade of blue that shifts like mist. “And the knots were ridiculous. I practically forced Raven to cut the damn thing.”

Bellamy nods, solemnly at first, but then with a small quirk of his lips, because he realizes that’s what she needs right now. A lightness, or at least a pretense of it to cast over the gloom of everything too heavy to take at the moment.

“Looks good.” And that was definitely true. It looked very good. Clean and shining. The natural waves sweeping down past her chin, curling around each other like golden silk.

“Well, as long as I have your approval,” she says dryly.

He rolls his eyes, leaning a forearm on his knee as he releases a sigh. “I was giving you a compliment.”

“I know,” she admits with a small smile. “Thank you.” She runs her fingers through the blonde locks. “Feels lighter, that’s a lot nicer.”

He nods, trying to show his interest without it being too obvious how interested he really is. When the silence reaches out between them for too long he clears his throat without thinking. His flinch earns him a dirty look. “So what are you doing here? Thought Jackson was coming back?”

“He was but… my… mom needed him.”

Bellamy frowns at the stilted sentence.

“He asked me to come check on you,” she whips out hastily. Her head ducks down suddenly at the medical report in her hand. “So, it says everything is fine—”

“I told him that.”

“But,” she starts, giving him a look, “you may have some damage to your throat.”

“Really?” he deadpans, voice rough like sandpaper over skin. “Ya think?”

She scowls disapprovingly, and he has an urge to smooth that small crease between her brows. What would she do if he touched her like that, he wonders. Without preamble or any real excuse, just touching for the sake of making each other feel better. He’s about to do with that thought what he always does with such wanderings of his mind, and push it as far back as he can, hide it far away until another moment comes up and it’s once again thrust into the spotlight. But before he can her fingers are on him, calloused yet gentle round his bruised neck. He’s so surprised he starts at her touch.

She pulls away, hands hanging in the air between them. “I’m sorry. Too cold?”

Compared to him she’s a fucking ice cube, but that’s not really the problem. “It’s fine,” he relents gruffly, which has less to do with his damaged throat and more to do the affect her touch has on him.

He tries to control his breathing when her hands return to his neck – he’s given up on his frantic heart – taking steady, shallow breaths, mesmerized by the way her hair sways lightly with every slow release of air.

“It’s definitely bruised.” Her thumb brushes beneath his eye. “Petechiae may take a few days to disappear.” And with her hands ghosting gently across the soft skin between his jaw and his throat, her eyes inspect the broken, discolored skin around his neck. “Along with any abrasions,” she adds sadly.

His already swollen throat feels suddenly tighter. His chest taut as he tries to hold back the onslaught of emotions that have crept up out of nowhere. He thinks he has it all under control until her eyes finally meet his, and they’re swimming in tears, chin trembling.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, voice just as hoarse as is.

He blinks slowly, hand wrapping around her forearm as she cradles his jaw.

“Don’t.” And he knows it’s not just about him, knows that she’s not only apologizing for _his_ injury but also her mother’s, Jackson’s, Kane’s and every other fucking person that she had no control over, because that’s who Clarke Griffin is. Octavia liked to joke, calling him Atlas, heavy with the weight of the world on his shoulders, but the truth was it was Clarke. So desperate to fix the world and take all its ills onto herself.

A tear drops fat and heavy from her eye, and his heart shatters at the sight. “I can’t save anyone.”

He slides his hand around the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the hair at the nape, thumb stroking her jaw so that they are a mirror image of each other. And it’s meant to be hard, be grounding, to force her to listen because what he’s about to say is absolutely the most important thing he ever has.

“You save me.”

He squeezes her forearm, brows raising. “You always save me.” He licks his lips, hesitant to continue, to make himself so vulnerable, but she deserved to hear it, even if she had to know already.

“I need you.”

He isn’t sure what he was expecting from her after that, to deny it and shake her head perhaps. Maybe breakdown and start crying anew. But this- this sudden resolve in her eyes as she blinks away her tears, her chin raising just a bit higher, is certainly not it.

She pulls him forward, leaning in herself till their foreheads are touching. It’s so surprising, so intimate he can’t help but release a sudden breath, running like fire up his throat and mingling with her own. She moves minutely, nuzzling her nose against his and he feels like he’s fucking floating. The pain in his throat and around his neck, the bruises and cuts that litter his body, the memories of all his past mistakes; all gone.

“You have me.”


End file.
